CODY SHIMIZU

A look into my life, a journal to look back on, a blog for others to see.

The initial plan was to make my way from Matsuyama to Naruto, where they had naturally occurring Whirl Pools due to the ocean currents, but since Naruto was a small town there wasnt too many trains that went out to Naruto. Combined with that and me sleeping in the morning of I decided to just go to Takamatsu where Id already booked a hostel to stay in and hang out there for the rest of the day. Takamatsu, although it was one of the larger town/city in the area, there really wasnt too much to do. Only point of interest was the ruins of the Takamatsu castle, but since it was the ruins it was only the grounds around the castle. It was cool to see the structures surrounding the castle, and the beautiful greenery surrounding the castle, although it was a little empty without a castle.

Afterwards I headed towards their shopping arcade. In Takamatsu they have the longest shopping arcade in Japan, I believe something like over 2.7Km!!! So although I didnt do much shopping, it was really cool to see so many shops lined up, most of them local privately owned stores with people going about their daily lives. After walking around all day long I had some Sanuki Udon which they originated from the area and went back to the hostel.

The next morning I left Takamatsu bright and early to visit Konpirasan. Konpirasan is one of the major shrines for Shinto followers, but it is also famous for the shrine being situated halfway up a mountain. To get to the shrine itself it is around a 45min of climbing stairs all the way up. The climb up was amazing with beautiful stone stairs winding through the woods, with lots of small stone statues, torii gates, or tomb stones lining the sides all along. Once there the size of the temple was absolutely amazing, the small details in the roof tiles, and the walls. From there I pressed on further to the small temple which is another 45min of stairs. To the top, once there they have a much smaller shrine where they sell lucky charms where you can only buy at that shrine after making the hike up. There on the side of the stone wall, they have these two faces carved into the side of the mountain. I didnt really know what they represented because I couldnt read the explanation LOL. The view from the top was absolutely amazing too!

From there I made my way back to the train station and headed to Okayama where Id be staying. I got to the hostel much earlier than I expected so I decided to go to Himeji Castle which was on the plan for tomorrow originally. It was a short train ride to Himeji and from the train station you can actually see the castle. Its about a Km from the station directly in front. The grounds was HUGE I mean absolutely HUUUUGE. It was amazing how well kept the entire area was. Once in the amazing thing about the Himeji castle is that all of the smaller building surrounding the castle grounds are either still intact or rebuilt to be historically accurate.

With the sheer size of the castle many of the individual rooms where it was completely empty, but all of the main areas were filled with amazing artefacts, and actual English explanations of the rooms and artefacts! The castle and its grounds are so big that they have multiple backyards throughout the grounds between the buildings. Inside there was this one artefact where it was the skeleton structure of all of the main logs holding up the building was recreated at a smaller scale. Apparently they used the model each time they had to rebuild the castle; it was one of the reasons why they have been able to keep the complete original shape and structure of the building. From the top floor of the castle you can actually see all across Himeji as it is the highest building there, even taller than many of the sky scrapers!!

After spending hours exploring the castle; I headed back to Okayama there I visited a small local ramen restaurant for dinner, like many of the shops in Japan it was incredibly small with barley any space to get to my seat. There were only about 8 seats right in front of the counter, and that was it. It tasted amazing! And it only cost about 5 bucks!